For the past couple of decades, appetizing fans in the know have made a weekly pilgrimage to a Greenpoint, Brooklyn factory. There, a 60-year-old fish-smoking plant offers retail shoppers a wealth of delicacies — from fatty sable tail to peppery pastrami lox and much, much more — all at bargain-basement prices.

In its glory days, in the early years on the 20th century, the Dar Bishi synagogue in Tripoli, in the capital’s Old City a few blocks from the Mediterranean, was the pride of Libyan Jewry; it was considered the most beautiful Jewish house of worship in the country.

In these days of warm weather, Israel’s Mediterranean coast attracts thousands of joggers and sunbathers, swimmers and Frisbee throwers, paddleball players and people who come to watch the scene or eat an al fresco meal in the breeze.

In Israel, Shavuot, a one-day holiday, is a time of family meals topped off with cheesecake, picnics and excursions to the seashore, all-night study sessions in Orthodox circles and the recitation of the Hallel prayers in many synagogues.